Costa Cruises is expanding the Costa neoCollection, the new type of slow cruising (read: fuel savings) designed to make the most of every minute at a leisurely pace.
From December 2014, after a major refit, the Costa Classica will join the Costa neoCollection and be renamed Costa neoClassica; together with the Costa neoRomantica and Costa neoRiviera, she will be offering cruises to unique destinations, with great natural scenery and superb cultural attractions, places that are inaccessible to big ships, including some that have been declared UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
The arrival of the Costa neoClassica will coincide with the introduction of new destinations and brand new itineraries. The first cruise, lasting 26 days, “From Egypt to the Spice Islands”, will sail from Savona on December 18, 2014.
After crossing the Suez Canal, on Christmas Day during the call at Eilat (Israel), Guests will be able to visit Jerusalem; from Aqaba (Jordan) they can discover Petra, the rose-red city carved out of the rock; next is Safaga, the gateway to the marvels of ancient Egypt. And what better way to start 2015 than on a cruise to Oman, the Seychelles, Madagascar, Reunion and Mauritius.
With home port Port Louis (Mauritius), from January 11 through February 22, 2015 the Costa neoClassica will offer four 16-day “Indian Ocean, paradise on earth” cruises; this is a leisurely itinerary with a backdrop provided by the pristine beaches, turquoise water and palm trees of the Seychelles – and more time to spend thanks to a port call lasting two nights and three days at Mahé – plus the extraordinary uncontaminated natural splendor of Madagascar, Réunion and Mauritius. Guests will travel from Italy to Mauritius on a Costa charter flight.
On March 8, 2015 the Costa neoClassica is scheduled to head back to the Mediterranean on another grand 32-day cruise “From the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean of Antiquity”: sailing from Mauritius and porting in Madagascar, the Seychelles, Oman, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Greece, Croatia and Italy.
During the 2015 summer season, from June 27 through August 15, 2015, the Costa neoClassica will be leaving every Saturday from Istanbul – easy to get to from Italy thanks to Costa charter flights – on an exclusive one-week cruise, “Istanbul and the Greek islands”.
The itinerary takes in Rhodes (Greece), Kos (Greece), Samos (Greece), Izmir (Turkey) and then back to Istanbul, where you can spend a full day and stay overnight before returning home. On this cruise Guests can relax on splendid beaches on Greek islands and at the same time soak up their natural beauty, history and culture. The unhurried call in Istanbul gives you the opportunity to really make the most of this timeless city with jewels like the Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sophia Museum, the Topkapi Palace, the Spice Market and lots more besides. Then in the evening, in line with the new Costa neoCollection philosophy, you can dine at the evocative Kervansaray Night Club or marvel at the city on a boat ride on the Bosphorus.
In spring and fall, from April 8 through June 7 and then from September 13 through November 7, 2015, the Costa neoClassica will be operating out of Venice and Ancona on the 11-day “Venice and Italy’s treasures” itinerary, a journey of discovery to Mediterranean locations full of history and culture: Calabria and Sicily with calls at Corigliano Calabro and Syracuse; Ionian Greece; Malta; the splendid Kotor fjord in Montenegro; and fascinating Split in Croatia. From April 18 through September 23, 2015 the ship will be based again in Venice and Ancona, this time on the 16-day “Voyage from Venice to the Black Sea” cruise.
The cruises on the Costa neoClassica, Costa neoRiviera and Costa neoRomantica are presented in the new Costa neoCollection brochure, available at travel agencies: 20 months of exclusive itineraries, from April 2014 through November 2015, in the Mediterranean, Northern Europe, UAE and Oman, Indian Ocean and Africa. In addition to the itineraries, the new brochure describes all the “ingredients” that set a Costa neoCollection vacation apart.
